


What's Yours Is Mine

by sassycatto



Category: Kingdom Hearts
Genre: Vanitas Is Bad at Feelings (Kingdom Hearts), Vanitas Swears (Kingdom Hearts), Ventus possesses Sora, can be read as ventus/vanitas, i usually stick to past tense so this was a wee bit of a challenge, uh. hopefully my tenses aren't too off
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-31
Updated: 2020-05-31
Packaged: 2021-03-03 00:40:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,634
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24475894
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sassycatto/pseuds/sassycatto
Summary: Vanitas finds Ventus's sleeping body in Castle Oblivion.
Relationships: Vanitas & Ventus (Kingdom Hearts)
Comments: 2
Kudos: 54





	What's Yours Is Mine

Vanitas knows searching for Ventus’s body in Castle Oblivion is hopeless- the place was a nightmare to travel through. That pitiful Master had at least managed one clever thing in her pathetic life: hiding Ven more thoroughly than one could imagine. Vanitas still searches, though. He has to keep moving through these winding halls, has to keep pressing through these mazes. 

It’s hopeless. Vanitas is surprised he hasn’t gotten lost. He’s about the end his hunt to, and just wait for that pitiful Master to return the Castle to its original form-

  
  
  


Suddenly... there it is, seated in a tall, white throne.

Ventus’s body.

...No. Vanitas thinks. Not 'Ventus’s' body.  _ Our  _ body.

The body that they had, at one point, shared.

Vanitas approaches it, heart (or whatever wretched thing he has in place of one) in his throat. The air around him is cool and still, tense and foreboding. Yet Vanitas presses onwards (why should a monster feel fear?). As he steps forward, a thought crosses his mind. His eyes fixate on the sleeping form before him, an unusually cautious glint in them. Vanitas continues to walk forward until he's there, reaching out a hand to touch it-

"...What's yours is mine, Ventus."

* * *

Even if Vanitas can't be full again... he has his body back. He may lack the Heart he once was a part of, but the body he had been born into… that was  _ his. _ The face in the mirror... that's what he was meant to look like. No more black hair or fangs, no sharp features, but...

Blonde hair. Soft cheeks. Freckles upon lively skin. Lush pink lips.

It's Ven's face. His face. The face he remembered having in the past, before he was split in two. Before he was given that wretched name. 

Vanitas- no, he's... Ventus now, isn't he? He's himself again, right?

Yes. Yes,  _ Ventus  _ is back in his body, now.  _ Ventus  _ is Ventus again, just as he was always meant to be.

This is the part where he's supposed to feel right. He's back in the body he was forcibly torn from, back in the body he had once tried to take for his own. It should feel good, and it does, but...

There's something missing. 

"Ventus" looks in the mirror.

And sees Vanitas's tired eyes staring back.

* * *

Castle Oblivion is no more. The Land of Departure stands in its place.

But when Aqua leads Sora, Donald, and Goofy into the throne room….

Ventus is awake.

Aqua walks forward, a confused look on her face. Should she be happy or cautious?

“Ven?” Aqua calls.

He's tense. Hands balled into fist, back turned to the newcomers.

Shadows are dripping off him.

His voice is hoarse. 

"I've done it, Ventus. I finally... have my body back."

Ventus turns. Aqua recoils as she notices the color of his eyes-

Yellow. That's not Ventus.

Whoever it is steps forward. They're looking straight at Sora, eyes steel cold.

"...So why... do I still feel  _ empty _ ?"

A shockwave of Darkness causes Aqua, Donald, and Goofy to tumble backwards. Sora stays standing, Keyblade at the ready. Yet he makes no move to attack.

"Ventus" takes another step forward.

"All my pitiful existence- all my wretched, wretched life... I've been forced to wear a face and name that weren't my own. Forced to lose what little past I had as myself, as Ventus, behind...."

"Ventus” motions to Sora, a scowl on his face.

"Now you find yourself in that predicament. Trapped in a body that's not your own. And yet.... you're complete."

"Ventus" bares his teeth, frustrated and disgusted. How pitiful an existence must he lead, to finally get his body back, yet still feel hollow and empty inside. Even the pain and misery of the Unversed aren't there, instead replaced by a void of nothing but bland memories.

Yet even in a body that was alien to him, Ventus's warmth is radiant. He is not hollow, or miserable, or broken....

What does Ventus have that "Ventus" does not? What makes Ventus complete?

Sora steps forwards, but when he speaks, it's not Sora's voice "Ventus" hears-

But his own.

"It's love, Vanitas."

...Of course. Something that Vanitas never had, that Ventus did.

"You Lights and your saccharine shit..." Vanitas (nono no he's Ventus now he'sVentusagain-!) spits out. "I want answers, Ventus-"

Sora- no, Ventus- closes his eyes, a sad smile on his face. "I told you, Vanitas. I... I'm not 'complete'-"

Still more bullshit. Ventus  _ was _ complete. He’s his own person, and he had done it all without Vanitas. He wasn’t broken anymore, so how could he call himself incomplete?

"Then what the fuck is up with you? How are you 'not complete', when you aren't broken? I can sense it in your Heart, you- you aren’t  _ empty _ , you have a reason to be! You have a purpose, something that’s  _ fixed you _ ! Even in another’s body…. What is it, Ventus? What’s made you complete?!”

"It's love."

Vanitas wants to scream. And maybe he does. It's all a haze of red and white and Light and Dark. He stomps forward, a hand ripping through his hair (blonde as he remembers) and tearing at his skin. He summons Ventus’s Keyblade-

No. Not Ventus’s Keyblade. Not Missing Ache. 

Instead Vanitas holds in his hands the nameless Keyblade of Red and Black Gears.

...He really isn’t Ventus. Not anymore. No matter what happened.... He’ll never be.

Ventus is….incomplete. Vanitas is as well. But after all they had been through, the two of them have grown into their own people. Merging together would prove futile; they are two puzzle pieces that don’t match, two incomplete people who could never become full….

The Ventus they used to make together is no more. Lost to time. Never coming back.

The original Ventus is dead.

Suddenly the flood of memories and pain and misery is overwhelming. Vanitas staggers back, letting out a screech. The Unversed that were missing before are suddenly clawing at the insides of his chest, begging to be let free. Vanitas feels them crawling through his throat, seeping into his bloodstream, burrowing into every fiber of his body, merging into his brain and screaming, screaming, screaming-

The Darkness inside him is overtaking him. Suffocating him. Filling his lungs with hot tar. He’s choking now, gasping, the Darkness working it’s way to his throat. It's too much for Ventus's body to handle. He’s sick, breaths labored and pained, body feeling drained. He’s never felt so faint in his entire existence, never felt so close to death-

Vanitas wants to yell. He wants to break the body of the boy in front of him. Fuck, he wants to break the body he's in.

_ He wants to do something, god damn it- wants to scream to run to fight to break to break to break to break to fade _

_ Just anything to stop the pain- _

Suddenly, silence.

As quick as it came, the pain in Vanitas’s body dulls down. It remains, but it has become less intense.

Sora's arms are around him now, and Ven's voice is whispering in his ears.

"Vanitas."

  
  
  


"I just wanted to be complete again."

"I know, Vanitas."

  
  


"I just wanted... to be us again. To be... Ventus, again."

"I know, Vanitas."

  
  
  
  
  


"...That Ventus is  _ dead _ ."

"I know, Vanitas."

  
  
  
  
  
  


"...I'm so tired, Ventus."

"I know."

  
  
  


They kinda stay like that, for a while. Vanitas has accepted that whatever happens next, well, chances are he's going to be expelled from this body forever. He wants to think he at least has right to half of it, but... if the original Ventus the two boys came from was as good as dead, was there really any point?

This body wasn’t Vanitas’s. Not anymore.

This body hadn’t been his for a long while.

  
  
  
  
  


All that is left now is for Vanitas to end.

He doesn’t care how it happens, if it’s by Ventus’s hand or Sora’s or  _ both _ of them. He just wants it done with. His destruction was inevitable; if there was no need for the original Ventus, no need for the boy he had come from, then was there any need for Vanitas?

No. 

All that is left now is for Vanitas to end.

It’d put a stop to all this suffering, wouldn’t it?

  
  


  
Yet… what is this.. this feeling? This calm washing over Vanitas, like a cool tide washing away searing heat? This unfamiliar gentle voice wishing those dark thoughts away?

This feeling blossoming in his chest, this feeling that comes with every breath Ventus lets out, this feeling that’s now coming  _ from  _ Vanitas, in the form of those small tears- just what  _ is  _ this feeling?

  
  
  


_ It's love, Vanitas. _

  
  
  


Love. 

A feeling that can make the pain of being incomplete a little more bearable.

Vanitas is trembling now. Or maybe he always was. He can’t say. His mind feels weak, numb, and… the body he’s in feels tired. Yet that new feeling remains, reassures him that no matter how weak and frail he becomes, it’s okay. Even if he breaks into pieces, he’ll be built up again. 

It’s a weird feeling. Maybe at one point, Vanitas would have been scared or disgusted by these new emotions, but for now, for the first time  _ ever _ , he feels…

At peace.

  
  
  


Ventus is still hugging him. For a moment Vanitas can feel  _ him. _ Not Sora, but his other half. Ventus’s breath is warm against the side of Vanitas’s face. 

Maybe they can never be one again. And for a second, Vanitas believes that that’s okay. 

That ache in Vanitas’s chest is still there. It’s still there and it still hurts, but this new feeling, this  _ love _ , is enough to make it hurt a little less.

Ventus holds him tighter.

When Ven finally speaks again... 

"Come on, Vanitas.... You're coming home, too."


End file.
